


Between the Darkness and the Light

by Selkit



Category: Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Canon-Typical Disturbing Imagery, F/M, Mental Health Issues, Post-Canon, Yuletide 2016, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-11 20:54:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9022150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selkit/pseuds/Selkit
Summary: Learning to be human again is no small thing.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Wilde_Shade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wilde_Shade/gifts).



Mostly, he was hungry. 

He didn’t remember much, but what little he did was hazy and dull. All grays, blacks, and browns, but every now and then shot through with a crimson so bright he reflexively closed his eyes. Then he laughed at himself, a low, churning rumble, because closing his eyes did nothing when the sight was already etched in all the pathways of his brain. 

The hunger distracted him, brought him spiraling down until there were no more memories or laughter, nothing else existing but primal need. His fingers curled inward, and he tried to leap upright, eyes darting in search of the white flashes that meant _food_ , but his limbs wouldn’t obey him. 

He unhinged his jaw and let out a screech so shrill it surprised even himself, jolting him backward into—something soft? He blinked, and the gray world brightened and shifted, tilting and swimming until it resolved into something…colorful?

 _What was softness? What was color?_ The notions rattled around in his brain, foreign yet familiar, pale and fleeting like snatches of a mostly-forgotten dream. He looked down at himself, at the wicked length of his claws digging into his palms. His flesh was sickly and withered, but it still bled. Red drops hit the floor and splattered, and he craned his head to watch as the gashes widened and the flow grew stronger, splatters turning to rivulets. The scent of it excited him, and he threw his head back and yowled. It was a wild, trilling sound, meant to send prey into panicked flight. 

It worked. He heard the sound of frantic footsteps accompanied by voices, loud and growing stronger, and then the whole space was filled with white streaks darting around him and toward him, a froth of activity and scents crashing up against one another. Sweat and fear and antiseptic, and above it all, the relentless tang of his own blood.

_So much movement. So much food. Food food food food food—_

But his arms still wouldn’t move. He screamed in frustration and outrage, yanking at the clamps secured around his wrists. They wouldn’t budge. 

Then he felt a prick at the hollow of his right arm, so gentle he wouldn’t have noticed it were it not for the disorienting vertigo that followed. The world spun and shifted back into gray tinged with hazy red, and the furious shriek he’d intended came out as more of a helpless, confused moan.

The white flashes stilled, then blurred. Just before he sank back into unconsciousness, his eyes locked onto the white blur hovering nearest his left arm. Something about it smelled familiar, smelled like warm sunlight and pine, like the crisp air on the mountain, like other things he couldn’t identify but somehow knew all the same. 

Then the white faded into black, and he knew nothing at all.

\- 

The next time he woke, he remembered faces. 

There were two of them, and they were so alike, yet different in the subtlest of ways. One was a little sharp where the other was soft. One had narrowed eyes and a skeptical slant to the mouth; the other was wide-eyed and searching. But both had the same olive skin and dark hair, the same heart-shaped faces, the same hands reaching toward him. The same smiles lighting up their eyes and stretching their mouths wide.

He felt a rush of something even more visceral and familiar than the hunger, something that he knew, without knowing how he knew, was fundamental to the core of his being. Something that he could never lose, for if he did, he would cease to be anything at all. A fate worse than death itself.

He couldn’t put words to the faces, or to the sensation churning through him, but he clung to it all the same. For the first time in as long as he could remember, he forgot the cold, the pain, the gnawing emptiness in his belly. He felt whole. 

He reached out toward the twin faces, his fingers inches away from theirs, somehow knowing that if he could just put his hand in theirs, everything would be all right. 

_I trust you,_ he felt rather than thought. _I trust you._

Then the smiles on the faces turned pitying. The outstretched hands began to dissolve, then the arms. He cried out, a wordless plea, and stretched out his hand as far as it would go, already knowing it was futile, like reaching into the ocean and trying to grasp a handful of salt. 

The smiles on the twin faces disappeared, replaced by sorrow. Their mouths moved, forming words he couldn’t understand. Then they were gone, swallowed up in the darkness. 

He howled, the ache of loss and hunger rushing back in, and this time when he felt the prick on his arm, the oblivion was a blessing. 

-

The next time he woke, everything smelled different. He could just make out hints of blood and smoky incense overlying the usual antiseptic, but everything was faded, muted, like someone had shoved cotton in his nostrils. He tilted his head, and opened his eyes. 

Everything _looked_ different, too. The red-gray haze had faded to the edges of his vision, and the colors were back. Blurred, but still visible. 

He parted his lips, feeling the dry rasp of his tongue against the roof of his mouth. He moved his jaw slowly, experimentally, testing his tongue along the razor-sharp edge of his teeth. 

Movement stirred near the corner of his eye, and he turned his head to look. Instead of the usual flash of bright white, it was more subtle. Flesh-toned. He drew a deep breath, his nostrils flaring. He could catch the scents of skin and muscle, of blood flowing just beneath the surface, but somehow it seemed farther away than it should have. The pangs in his belly stirred, reminding him of their constant presence.

He opened his mouth, and for the first time in as long as he could remember, he formed a word instead of a scream.

“Hun…gry.”

-

They brought him a slab of meat that was far too browned for his liking, but the inside was still soft and red, and he couldn’t hold back a keening whine of near-desperation. They unchained his right wrist, and he grabbed up the meat in one hand and shoved it in his mouth, ripping off chunks and gulping them down as fast as his throat could handle them, barely even chewing. When it was gone he pressed his mouth to the tray, licking up each spare trace of the bloody juice until he tasted nothing but the plastic beneath. The tray’s other compartments held things that smelled vaguely familiar but unappetizing—green beans, an apple, a roll of bread. Those, he ignored. 

With the edges taken off his hunger, he dozed, fading in and out. Every now and then he opened his eyes, watching half-lidded as the fleshy blurs circled around his bed. Some of them touched him, their hands rubbery and cold on his skin. Others just stood and watched him. Occasionally they paced. Other times they fidgeted, the movement just enough that he could see it more clearly. 

He tilted his head, trying to catch their scents. They hovered in the air, indistinct, but familiar. A contradictory mix of good and bad, stirring hazy memories of warmth and comfort, of distance and disappointment. Of worry, frustration, affection. The tang of fresh-cut grass, the solid weight of a baseball bat in his hands. Long afternoons in cramped doctor’s offices, the press of a hand against his, the gentle scrape of fingernails through his hair. Faces lined with tension, poorly concealed beneath smiles of forced cheer. 

He craned his neck, sniffing harder. The restraints tugged at his wrists, but he didn’t test them. Across the room, the two fleshy blurs came closer, their scents growing stronger, more familiar. At this distance he could begin to make out features: eyes, noses. Open mouths, with sounds coming out, noises that rose and fell in a hopeful cadence. 

The words didn’t quite make sense, but that didn’t matter. He knew the voices all the same. 

He opened his mouth and tried to respond in kind, letting out a soft trill—but no, that wasn’t right. He concentrated, trying harder, twisting his lips and tongue in ways that felt stiff, unnatural. 

“Mmh,” he said. “Mm—mmh— _Mom._ Mom? Dad?”

He heard a gasp, then more words, fast-paced and watery. He felt the press of fingers on his hand, smelled a sudden rush of something wet and warm and salty. 

That was the most familiar scent of all. 

-  
   
The days blended together, one into the next, and with each one things became a little bit clearer. It felt like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle sliding into place, underwater and in slow motion, but coming together nonetheless. 

His eyes were closed when he heard the creak of the door, followed by the soft tap of footsteps coming toward his bed. He breathed in deep, expecting the sour-sterile tang of _doctor_ , the calm-lavender scent of _mother_ , or the gruff-musty smell of _father_. Instead, he caught the scents of pine and mountain air, earth and sweat, and the tantalizing omnipresent pull of blood beneath it all. That, at least, was becoming easier to ignore. 

He opened his eyes. The face that hovered above his bed was one he knew well: upswept blonde hair, pursed lips, green eyes touched with wariness and concern. Less familiar were the dark circles beneath the eyes, the touch of pallor to the skin, the flesh drawn tight over cheekbones sharper than they’d been before.

He frowned, parting his lips. Words were coming easier, and he didn’t try to stop them.

“You…” he began. “You look…like shit.”

Her eyes flew open wide, nostrils flaring. Then her hand darted to her mouth, failing to stifle a hitching, snorting noise. It took him a moment to remember it: the sound of laughter. 

“Thanks,” she said. Her voice was laced with sarcasm, but her eyes were smiling, some of the darkness easing beneath them. “Great to see you too, Josh.”

 _Josh_. He rolled the word over in his brain, tested it on his tongue. He remembered hearing it before, darting across the room over and over like a trapped bird, but it hadn’t quite clicked until now. “I…I’m. Josh?”

“Yes.” She perched on the side of his bed, carefully steering clear of his claws, still cuffed to the railing. “Do you remember me?”

“Yeah.” He gathered up his concentration, taking care not to let her name catch on the sharp jut of his fangs. “Sam.”

She smiled, and by now his eyesight had improved enough to read the pleasure and relief on her face. Something like contentment sparked in him, warm and calming. It was similar to what he’d felt when he remembered the twin faces, but not quite the same. 

_The twins._ The contentment ebbed away, anxiety rushing in to take its place. He remembered their smiles dimming, their faces fading into blackness, their hands disappearing just as he’d tried to grasp them. 

He looked back up to Sam, his wrists flexing beneath the restraints. He opened his mouth, but this time a hissing growl came out before he could stop it. He wrangled it under control, narrowing all his focus until he could turn it into words, slow and halting. 

“Are you…real?” he asked.

Her eyes widened again. He watched the curve of her throat as she swallowed.

“Of course,” she whispered. “It’s really me, Josh. I’m here.”

He blinked at her, long and slow, gauging her words. Something prickled at the back of his mind, a cold dark voice whispering that it couldn’t be true, that she _shouldn’t_ be here, that there was a reason she would never want to see him again. Fragments of memories shifted in his thoughts, but he couldn’t string them together. It was close—it was _almost_ there, yet it hovered just beyond his grasp.

But her touch on his hand felt real enough, her short fingers twining carefully between his elongated, misshapen ones. He knew he couldn’t trust it, but for now, it felt good. And that was enough.

-

The next time he woke, she was still there. He saw her at the side of the room, draped across two plastic chairs. Her eyes were closed, her brow furrowed, her chest rising and falling in a deep even rhythm. A lock of blonde hair had fallen carelessly across her face, fluttering with each breath she exhaled.

He’d never hallucinated a sleeping person before. His typical visions were all too eager to talk to him, accuse him, taunt him. It kindled a tiny flicker of hope deep in the back of his mind. 

Almost simultaneously, he remembered the twin faces again. This time, they weren’t smiling. Their hair was disheveled, their eyes glittering, their gray skin shot through with decay and distended veins. Their mouths gaped open, unnaturally wide. 

“Josh,” one whispered, and the other echoed it, stretching his name out in a long sibilant hiss. _“Josh…”_

His jaw wouldn’t open quite as far as it used to, but it was still enough for him to scream. Sam jerked awake, her eyes wild, her balled fists flying up to fight off an unseen enemy.

“Josh,” she breathed, and lowered her hands, rising from the chair and hovering near the edge of his bed. “What happened? Are you okay?”

“Hannah,” he gasped. His breath was coming too fast, a frantic, ragged keening, making the world tilt and spin around him. “Beth.”

The vision of the twin faces disappeared—or was it a memory? He didn’t know. At the other side of the room, the door flew open, the space filling with the medicinal scent of _doctor_. Their gloved hands reached toward him, murmured reassurances flowing from their open mouths. His eye caught the glint of the needle that would bring him the dark oblivion, the temporary peace. Part of him longed for it.

And yet…

“Wait,” he pleaded, craning against the restraints. “Wait.”

At his side, Sam took up the call. “Wait!” she said, one hand gripping his, the other stretching toward the doctors. “He’s remembering.”

The antiseptic smell faded to the background. He forced it out of his mind, focusing on Sam’s face. She braced one knee on the edge of his bed, leaning over him. 

“What do you remember?” she said softly.

His eyes fell half-closed. He tried not to think of pale gray faces rising out of inky gloom.

“They’re gone,” he whispered. 

He felt Sam’s fingers squeeze his hand. “Yes.”

Something in her tone made him open his eyes. Her face was guarded, but he saw hints of apprehension mixing with grief. 

“There’s more,” he said slowly. 

She nodded. “Josh…do you remember the mines?”

Flashes of memory tugged at him. His subconscious rose up against them, trying to beat them back. Trying to protect him. 

He concentrated harder and remembered Sam’s face, pale and streaked with blood and grime, framed by her halo of mussed blonde hair. Her eyes were bleak, her voice pitched high with urgency.

_Hannah was down here for…weeks? A month? She dug Beth up…_

_She dug Beth up._

“No,” he said aloud. “No.”

Pieces clicked into place, the jigsaw memories snapping together. The bitter cold of the mines, the terror of isolation more inescapable than he’d ever felt it before, the constant hunger like a knife driving deep into his gut. The taste of blood in his mouth, the slick tendrils of skin and muscle sliding down his throat. The cold and panic morphing into something stronger, more sinister.

“Hannah,” he whispered. “She…?”

He looked up and saw the truth of it in Sam’s eyes. Then he turned his head away from her and vomited all over the floor, gasping and heaving until he was completely empty. 

When the doctors approached again, driving the needle into his arm, he didn’t resist.

-

The next time he woke, Sam was gone. He couldn’t blame her.

Alone, he leaned back on his bed and let the memory fragments come. Hannah and Beth—no. No. He couldn’t think of them any more, not unless he wanted to spend the rest of his life screaming. He cast about for something else instead, for more pieces to add to the puzzle.

For once, his mind obliged him, showing him glimpses of cameras and sketches, of maps with post-it notes stuck all over them. He remembered himself, gloved to the elbows, reaching deep inside the belly of a dead pig, pulling out guts by the handful. He remembered seeing the world narrowed through the slitted eyes of a mask, breathing in through layers of rubber and plastic. 

He was still remembering when the door opened and Sam walked in, preceded by her wafting earth-and-pine scent. He watched her approach, not quite trusting himself to speak. 

“Hey,” she said when she reached him, sliding into the chair alongside his bed. She was smiling, but it was layered with worry. “I know this is a stupid question, but…how are you feeling?”

“I’m,” he began, then swallowed. “I remembered. Everything I did that night.”

He wanted to just leave it there, but somehow it felt important to keep going. “Everything I did…to you. To everyone.”

Sam took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “Oh.”

He risked meeting her eyes. “Guess I really fucked up, huh?”

“Josh…” She moved like she was going to reach for his hand, but she didn’t quite make it. “Look. Yeah, it was messed up. But it wasn’t you. Not really.”

He felt his eyebrows climb his forehead. “I thought I was the crazy one here.”

That earned him a puckered frown, one he remembered seeing many times before, reserved for when he was being especially exasperating. “You’re _not_ crazy. Okay? You’re sick.” She breathed in deep and slid her thumb across the tops of his claws, avoiding the sharp tips. “And I don't mean _this,_ either. So, I get it. I get why you did what you did. And…maybe I could have done more. Maybe if I’d been a better friend, this wouldn’t have happened.”

“Sam—”

“No, let me finish. After—after Hannah and Beth disappeared, I knew you were having a hard time. And I knew you’re not the type of person who’s going to ask for help. I worried about you, but I didn’t _do_ anything. I don’t know. Maybe if I’d pressed more, asked you more often how you were doing, you wouldn’t have…” 

She trailed off, picking at a loose thread on the bedsheet. Josh tilted his head, tried to wet his lips. His mouth was still dry, still raspy.

“It wasn’t your fault, Sam,” he said. 

She looked up, and her eyes were fierce. “It wasn’t yours, either,” she said. “You know that, right? What happened to Hannah and Beth. You weren’t responsible.” 

He was less sure, threads of guilt and grief snaking around his heart. Yet she spoke with such conviction that he could almost believe her.

“So,” he said. “You’re not pissed at me? About…you know, everything?”

Her mouth twisted a little, pulling up at one corner. “I won’t say it’s been easy,” she said. “But holding onto bitterness never helped anyone.”

“Yeah.” He huffed out a breath, looking down, staring at nothing. “Learned that the hard way.”

He felt Sam’s hand close around his, her skin smooth and warm. 

“I just want to move forward as much as I can,” she said. “I want you to get better.” She paused, then squeezed his hand. “We all do.”

He raised his head, meeting her eyes. “The others? They made it out?” _And they don’t hate me, either?_ he didn’t say. It seemed too much to hope for. 

“Yeah. And they want to see you, when you’re up for it.” She smiled, her eyes crinkling at the corners. “Chris has already been here a couple times, but you were always asleep or sedated. He was bummed, but he’ll be back. Ashley’s the one who’s most on the reluctant side, but don’t worry. She’ll come around.”

He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

“Sam,” he said, and wished he could turn his hand over to squeeze her fingers back. “Thanks. Thanks for being here.”

Her smile widened, softened. “You’re welcome. I’m not going to make the same mistake twice.”

Her expression faded into something more thoughtful, her eyes going a little distant. Then her face tensed in determination, and before he quite realized what was happening, she was leaning up across the bed, brushing her lips against his.

He froze. A long moment passed before he let his lips part ever so slightly, carefully tilting his head, trying to compensate for the new breadth of his mouth. Despite the caution, he heard a sharp intake of breath, then his nostrils filled up with the familiar scent of blood.

Sam pulled back, her eyes rueful, hand pressed to the cut on her lip. “All right,” she said, smiling, shaking her head at herself. “Guess I won’t do that again.”

He felt his expression change, and he must have looked stricken, because a laugh bubbled out of her, sudden and bright and sending a jolt of warmth shooting through him.

“Maybe just not anytime really soon,” she amended, her eyes sparkling.

“But later?” he said, and heard hope in his voice.

It was strange, that. Hope. But a good kind of strange. 

“Later,” Sam said, her smile turning to a grin. And he knew it was a promise.


End file.
